Just curious, in your 30 years in the company, have you ever back stabbed anyone? Were you ever prejudiced against anyone? Please be honest.

Who will fill up the empty homes?

By Ku Swee Yong
TODAY - Published: June 5, 2015


In the 2015 AT Kearney Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Confidence Index, Singapore dropped six places to 15th. The index, published yearly since 1998, “examines the overarching trends in FDI” and is “a forward-looking analysis of how political, economic and regulatory changes will likely affect countries’ FDI inflows in the coming years”. Among the countries that overtook Singapore were Japan, France and Mexico.

The fall in ranking implies that either Singapore’s political, economic and regulatory changes are negative for FDI, or that other countries have improved in these areas and leapfrogged the Republic.

Most likely, it is a combination of both. So, what happens when Singapore loses its competitiveness and FDI into the country slows? And what happens when this scenario is coupled with recent housing and manpower policies?

The Ministry of Manpower has stressed that Singapore needs to keep its manpower growth tight and produce a lean and productive workforce. Therefore, significant headcount growth from foreigners holding work permits, S-passes and employment passes should not be expected. The National Talent and Population Division is also very selective in granting permanent residency to and naturalising immigrants. So, population growth in these segments will also be limited.

Anecdotal evidence of an increasing number of foreigners walking away from their property loans and investors dumping their luxury apartments at big losses does not put Singapore in a good light among high-net-worth individuals worldwide.

Several high-net-worth families who had invested in private equity funds to qualify for permanent residency did not get the positive financial returns they were looking for. Like it or not, Singapore’s high-net-worth PR population will decline if they walk away from bad investments to seek better returns elsewhere.

This may not be a bad thing when viewed from the electorate’s standpoint. Voters, in general, do not want Singapore to be overcrowded with too many new citizens, PRs and foreigners. However, property investors are breaking out in cold sweat as the number of tenants dwindle.

According to the National Development Minister’s blog, 182,506 residential units will be completed between this year and 2018. About 85 per cent of these have been already sold.

The total increase in residential supply during the 10 years from 2005 to last year was 151,475 units, catering to a booming population growth of 1.3 million during the period. The population growth expected from this year to 2018 will be lower, with about 80,000 to 100,000 each year, or a total of 400,000 at the top of the range over the four years.

Let us assume a very optimistic case for the private residential segment, and exclude Housing and Development Board flats and Executive Condominiums. If we assume that the home take-up rate of the past eight years (8,206 units per year) will carry over the next three to four years, the massive increase in the supply of private residential properties will still result in a vacancy rate of more than 12 per cent (more than 45,000 vacant units) in 2017 and 2018.

That will weigh on rental values, and the downward pressure on investment returns may be exacerbated by the expected rise in global interest rates.

This is the optimistic scenario. Things could be worse with the uncertain outlook in the European, Chinese and South-east Asian economies. The prolonged downturn in oil and commodities prices will also lead to headcount cuts here, given Singapore’s top rankings in offshore rig building and commodities trading.

Add to the above the tightening foreign-worker policy and the slower growth in the number of PRs and new citizens, and the new residential units will be challenging to fill up.

What if some of the cooling measures, such as the Additional Buyer Stamp Duty, are removed? Will this bring back buyers standing on the sidelines? I believe there may be a knee-jerk reaction if the cooling measures are removed, but astute investors will not jump in to catch a falling knife.

Why invest in real estate when the oversupply and tighter immigration policy will lead to weak and inconsistent rental income on the back of rising interest expenses?

Smart investors look for a growth reason to enter the property market. At this moment, the “Singapore product” does not seem to have an economic catalyst or a significant event that will bring it up to a new product life-cycle. Therefore, regional investors are giving it a miss.

It was just over a decade ago when the Singapore private property index slumped and remained stagnant from 2000 to 2005 on a large backlog of supply. What if the same stagnation is starting now? If this situation drags on, we might ask: What if Singapore becomes irrelevant to investors? What if investors looked beyond the Republic to better investment destinations? What if Singapore becomes a “has-been”?

This massive property oversupply problem is very, very serious. If we don't allow more FTs to come in, it will collapse the rental market and property prices will collapse. Our economy and livelihood of many will be in big trouble.

No one can be perfect nor be a saint. You only think you are a saint and good person. To some people, they may think you are, but others may hate you.

A manager may be well liked by his subordinates, but if he does not deliver, his boss will not favour him over others who delivered. Likewise, a person who worked his subordinates hard to meet the KPIs may win the bosses' favour, but will cause unhappiness among his subordinates.

Once there's an element of competition in your job be it for promotion, recognition or bonuses, there will be rivalry both the healthy and unhealthy types.

I may have unknowingly caused some people to look bad in the eyes of the top management, but it was never done with that intent, but more because our department KPIs were better than theirs.

Remember the saying "live by the sword, die by the sword"? Well, those who don't live by this, also die by the sword. In any reshuffle, innocents are removed along with the "guilty" or losing camp!

Have I been prejudiced? I supposed so. I think it is human nature to form impression of people they meet based on their looks, dressing, behavior, academic qualification and track record. I admit there are colleagues I liked better than others.

As I mentioned before, no one can know the certainty of the tenure of their job regardless of where they work, while employed and earning a good salary, they should build up their investments for alternative sources of incomes.

That's why I find it sad that some posters are recommending the flipping of their BTO flats just to buy cars which are hugely depreciating assets. If they want to flip their flats it should be for building up their sources of passive incomes, first to supplement their work income, and subsequently as income to sustain their retirement. As the retirement age is now 62, and will be 65 in the near future, there is a long time to go for many people to build up their retirement funds.

For my wife and I, we have been building up the passive income sources for many years. It is a continuous process, with regular reviewing and rebalancing our portfolios. What started out as a necessity to prepare for our retirement has now become a hobby for us. We are constantly looking out for good investments. Whenever we see the stocks prices fall, we will accumulate. Right now, we are watching property prices closely looking for a good property for investment.

As we are still some way to go before retirement, we have rewarded ourselves with a new car for my wife paid for fully with one year passive income. Most of the other years, we will reinvest the incomes and spent some of it for our annual holidays.

Here are ways we can avoid this impending property disaster

1. Stop all land sales for the next 5 years. This will allow the property glut to be absorbed by the market.

2. Remove ABSD for foreigners buying thier first property here. This allow unsold properties to be absorbed.

3. Allow more FTs to work here. Empty condos and HDB flats can then be filled up by tenants.

4. Increase ABSD for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th property to 20% for all Singaporeans, PR and foreigners to discourage property investment to solve the problem of empty condos with no tenants.

5. Increase the downpayment from 40% to 70% for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th property.

For those who have been on the sideline like myself, and I believe there are many of us, the property prices have not come down enough for us to go in. So, I say let it drop a little more, and we will come in to soak them up.

The government has many tools and measures at its disposal to control the property market. And they have to balance between keeping the prices affordable to first time buyers, protecting and attracting investors and reducing the outflow of money to other countries.

Swee Yong's article, in my view, is an indirect plea to the government to review and remove the cooling measures to breathe life back into property investment sector. He pointed out that singapore properties are beginning to look unattractive to high networth individuals, both locals and foreigners. And the consequent of that is that good money will flow out of Singapore or not come in at all. This is not good for our economy. But at the same time, the government has to keep the electorate pacified by reducing the number of foreign talents here.

At the end of the day, people will switch sides once they bought their property. That is, for first timers, they want to buy their homes on the cheap. Once they bought, they would want to see their home prices rise. So it is a very fine line for the government to walk on.

That said, it is also true the government will also ensure the property prices will not collapse. This makes investing in property in Singapore attractive in my view. That's why I am closely monitoring the price movement.

You are missing the point. The current oversupply is due to excessive speculative demand for investment properties from people like you. When there is excessive speculative demand, there will be excessive oversupply of rental properties in the market.

So, to reduce the excessive supply of rental properties, demand for investment properties must be stopped hence, we should increase the ABSD for 2nd and subsequent properties.

In order to increase demand from tenant of the already built investment properties, we should increase the number of FTs working here.

In summary, ABSD for investment properties must increase while the number of FTs must increase.

Learn to differentiate between investors and speculators. Speculators were long weeded out by the slew of cooling measures along with the TDSR, MSR and ABSD.

If the government didn't increase the land sales, the developers would not have land to build on. If that were so, property prices would have climbed further despite the cooling measures, TDSR, ABSD and MSR. So you should point the finger at the government for increasing land supply. But you will be condemned by the buyers for keeping the prices elevated.

Demand for properties is always there, from first time home buyers and people with excess savings. If government don't increase land supply for developers to build homes here, investors will put their money outside of the country. They are not speculators flipping properties to make a quick buck, but investors doing their best to grow and protect their savings.

So, I say let the prices cool further and let investors keep the money in the country. It helps keep jobs for housing agents, conveyancing lawyers and provide tenants with choices to rent. And more importantly, this is one good avenue for retirees to earn passive income.

I see. Good luck to you.

I think you are a very successful couple. Your household income is higher than the average household income of $10k pm. Your expenses on mortgage is low as your MSR is only 11.4%. Your other expenses are reasonable. Your savings rate of 28% is decent.

By the time you retire at 65, you would have paid your mortgage and saved another $1m. You can invest the $1m in a 5% dividend stocks portfolio giving you $50k pa in dividends. Your CPF Life will give you $3500 pm or $42k pa (as a couple). So your passive income will be $92k pa. If each of your children gives you $1k pm (as a couple), you would have an additional $24k pa, so your total passive income will be $116k pa. You will surely enjoy your retirement in your condo.